Excerpt: Minions. Go forth mine minions! Bring havoc with your 1 hp [merged]

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Yeah, I've thought of that. It wouldn't feel slower to me because I am painfully aware of how the +1/2 level advancement is an illusion, but for someone who finds it to be a pleasurable but nutrition-free placebo (like candy made from gum arabic and Splenda), there would be a sense of loss. I think I could sell it as "Removing needless complexity from the game", since they still get all the cool class powers and such. After all, static bonuses really aren't that interesting compared to Acid Arrow or Tide of Iron, and once you've made the mental adjustment (and seen from gameplay experience that nothing is lost), smooth sailing should follow.

Well, you could (and should) probably also remove the HD and any damage increases, then. They are also just an illusion. (And if you do only increase HP, you also get in the unfortunate situation of higher level combat simply taking longer) then.

The level increases of attacks, skills and defenses are not an illusion, though. You _get_ better against lower level foes. And this can matter if you want to get a feeling for where you stand in the world.

Though 4E might actually be the first edition where it could work to do it this way, since HP or Attack modifiers are far from the most important part of a monster, especially the humanoid ones.

 

[Voss]

A devlish minion is not a level appropriate encounter for the prince/princess/small puppy. If you want an encounter with a creature much more powerful than it's opponent, don't use a minion! For you to say "the minion rules don't work" based on a circumstance where the rules specifically say not to use minions just doesn't make any sense.

It was just an example, specifically to point out how absurd the minion rules get. Here's what my problem with minions boils down to:

1 hp is generally something I associate with, say, a glass window. A thrown rock will break it, even if thrown by a small child. 1 hp = 1 hp, so if a small child can break a window, he can kill a 21st level legion devil, an orc minion or a kobold minion, or whatever. This, to me, is an absurd thing. Even if you never have small children killing devils, (though its such an entertaining image...) you still have a subsystem that is actively wacky and absurd. Even in gamist terms, a first level wizard can kill *something* with a rusty dagger, and get somewhere between 25 and several hundred, if not thousand XP. That strikes me as really messed up. Meanwhile, he can run into something of the same type that will turn him into dogmeat if he tries something that ridiculous.

 

[MrGrenadine]

I really like the minion rules in theory, but in practice I'll make a small change:

At Heroic level, a successful hit kills a minion if it does at least 3 hp damage. At Paragon level, the minimum damage raises to 6, and at Epic, it raises to 9.​

If a successful hit does less than the mimum damage required for a kill, then the minion is thrown back one square and knocked prone.​

Why? Because 1 hp damage is the absolute minimum for any successful hit, and I just can't live with the possibility of a wizard with an 8 strength and a dagger felling a demon warrior with one poke.


This is also an easy condition to add to *any* creature that I want to behave like a minion, and I can turn the condition on and off at will, (in other words, there would never be a two minion boxing match, because the 'minion' condition wouldn't apply unless and until the creatures were facing off against the PCs.)

Also, the minimum damage numbers may need to be raised or lowered, but a few 4e sessions should determine that.

 

[Wolfwood2]

It was just an example, specifically to point out how absurd the minion rules get. Here's what my problem with minions boils down to:

1 hp is generally something I associate with, say, a glass window. A thrown rock will break it, even if thrown by a small child. 1 hp = 1 hp, so if a small child can break a window, he can kill a 21st level legion devil, an orc minion or a kobold minion, or whatever. This, to me, is an absurd thing. Even if you never have small children killing devils, (though its such an entertaining image...) you still have a subsystem that is actively wacky and absurd. Even in gamist terms, a first level wizard can kill *something* with a rusty dagger, and get somewhere between 25 and several hundred, if not thousand XP. That strikes me as really messed up. Meanwhile, he can run into something of the same type that will turn him into dogmeat if he tries something that ridiculous.

You may find a useful rule to be that minions are only minions when facing an enemy no more than 4 levels lower. If a "minion" is more than four levels higher than the PCs, they get Con + 3 * level hitpoints. (Numbers may be adjusted after playtesting.)

I think that's how I'll be handling such a corner case, anyway. I know having number of hitpoints be situationally variable rather than an in-game measurable feature of the creature makes simulationism scream in agony, but I'll cope.

 

[Rex Blunder]

1 hp is generally something I associate with, say, a glass window. A thrown rock will break it, even if thrown by a small child. 1 hp = 1 hp, so if a small child can break a window, he can kill a 21st level legion devil, an orc minion or a kobold minion, or whatever.

By your logic, 1/4 of all level 1 commoners (probably about 21% of the total population) in 3e are as hard to kill as a glass window. If Dennis the Menace hits 4 people with his slingshot during his career, he is probably a murderer.

I feel like, by objecting to minions but accepting HP, you are straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel.

Look around you! There are camels everywhere, walking around like they're regular people! Put on these special glasses and you can see them!

 

[Edwin_Su]

I wonder about a specific type of minions, the ones with regeneration.

For example a Troll
I assume a troll minion would go down in 1 attack that uses fire or acid.

But what of the other attacks (like a hit with a plain weapon) would you still have to track hit points to see when a troll minion would get back on his feet again?

Or would you just make it immune to all but acid and fire damage to speed up play ?

Or maybe just roll a 1d4 when the minion goes down to see in which round it will get back up ?

 

[Blackeagle]

It was just an example, specifically to point out how absurd the minion rules get. Here's what my problem with minions boils down to:

1 hp is generally something I associate with, say, a glass window. A thrown rock will break it, even if thrown by a small child. 1 hp = 1 hp, so if a small child can break a window, he can kill a 21st level legion devil, an orc minion or a kobold minion, or whatever.

There's your problem. 1hp<>1hp. If my 10th level fighter has 100 hp, the first hp of damage I take is a somewhat close call, like an arrow flying by my head or a sword swing that glances off my full plate. 99 hit points of damage later, the last hp represents the dagger that buries itself in my throat or a sword thrust through the heart. Not the same.

1hp on a minion is simply a signifier for "this monster dies on any solid hit".

Even in gamist terms, a first level wizard can kill *something* with a rusty dagger, and get somewhere between 25 and several hundred, if not thousand XP. That strikes me as really messed up.

But (as has been pointed out many times before) according to the rules a first level wizard *can't* kill a high level minion with a rusty dagger, because if a first level wizard is facing a high level minion, the DM is doing something the rules explicitly warn against. Complaining the rules don't work when you break the rules doesn't really tell us anything about the rules.

 

[Dausuul]

Why? Because 1 hp damage is the absolute minimum for any successful hit, and I just can't live with the possibility of a wizard with an 8 strength and a dagger felling a demon warrior with one poke.

Why not?

In the real world, a guy with a dagger can kill you in one hit. The toughest man alive can still be killed with one hit. If you were to slash the dagger across the demon warrior's throat, why wouldn't it bleed out and die?

Now, what are the odds of you actually pulling that move off, if you're a weakling wizard? Pretty damn low. But that's what the minion's Armor Class is for.

If you ask me, what's unrealistic is all the stuff that has so many hit points it can't be killed in one hit.

 

[Mad Mac]

I really like the minion rules in theory, but in practice I'll make a small change:

I'm thinking the same thing, but I'll probably just handwave it at the table. "You punch for the Devil Legionaire for...2 damage? Eh, he's still up."

 

[Irda Ranger]

Well, you could (and should) probably also remove the HD and any damage increases, then. They are also just an illusion.

"Illusion" was the wrong word (my fault). They're a marker for skill, just like BAB and AC, but they're analog/ablative, rather than binary/threshold.

To briefly crib my own thread on this topic from a week ago (LINK), there are four primary variables to all agents with a 4E game (except Minions): HP, AC/Defense, BAB and Dmg. (Dmg being the average amount of damage you can do with an attack). These variables can be arranged in a simple quadrant of "Defense vs. Offense" and "Threshold vs. Ablative".

Core D&D advances all four variables, but you can remove advancement in pairs. If you remove BAB/AC advancement you get a Heroic Fantasy game where one high level dude can fight off 50 1st level orcs before succumbing (the Boromir situation). If you remove HP/Dmg advancement you get a Gritty Fantasy setting where even a 20th level dude can be killed by an Orc drudge who rolls a crit (the Layer Cake situation).

But you have to adjust them in their correct opposing pairs (Ablative to Ablative, Threshold to Threshold). If you don't .... "you ... get in the unfortunate situation of higher level combat simply taking longer", as you point out. Which is why if you allow HP to advance (which I do, because I want to play the Heroic Fantasy version of D&D) Dmg should go up too.

The level increases of attacks, skills and defenses are not an illusion, though. You _get_ better against lower level foes. And this can matter if you want to get a feeling for where you stand in the world.

Your advancing skill in defending yourself is reflected in your HP, and your increasing skill at attacking is shown by the Dmg you can do.

Though 4E might actually be the first edition where it could work to do it this way, since HP or Attack modifiers are far from the most important part of a monster, especially the humanoid ones.

Although I agree that 4E is the first game where you can do this easily, the real reason (IMO) is because it's the first edition where all Thresholds (BAB, AC, Defenses and Skills) advanced along the same power curve.